Potential therapeutic role of cisplatinum in autologous bone marrow transplantation: in vitro eradication of neuroblastoma cells from bone marrow.

Cisplatinum may prove to be a valuable agent for the elimination of diseased cells in the bone marrow of patients with neuroblastoma. In this study, we measured the efficacy of cisplatinum on human neuroblastoma cell lines and on normal human bone marrow progenitors, GM-CFC and CFU-F. Data indicate that the therapeutic index of cisplatinum is high.

Expression of growth factors and oncogenes in normal and tumor-derived human mammary epithelial cells.

The expression of genes which may be involved in the regulation of human mammary epithelial cell growth [transforming growth factors alpha and beta] and tumorigenesis [c-myc, erbB2, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), Ha-ras, pS2] has been compared in similarly cultured normal cell strains and tumor cell lines. We have found that the normal breast cells produce high levels of EGFR mRNA, which are translated into nearly 10(5) low affinity epidermal growth factor-binding molecules/cell. In the estrogen receptor-negative lines examined, the EGFR gene was expressed at levels comparable to those in the normal cells.